


All The King's Horses

by kathkin



Series: sky comes crashing down [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alcoholism, Dark fic, Dehumanisation, M/M, Suicide, Torture, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:39:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/872766/chapters/1676760">The Sky Comes Crashing Down</a>. Arthur tries to make things right, he really does, but it never feels like enough. Maybe he is losing his mind. </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [](http://heriros.livejournal.com/profile)[**heriros**](http://heriros.livejournal.com/) . Thanks to various people - most of them anons - who suggested things that should happen in the sequel, cause most of them went in. Also to [](http://dayari.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://dayari.livejournal.com/)**dayari**  , my awesomesauce cheerleader.

Arthur gets hold of Merlin’s mother’s address without much difficulty – it was in Merlin's file, after all, and he has every right to read that – and simply shows up on her doorstep unannounced.

 

“How did you get my address?” Those are the first words out of her mouth.

 

“It’s on record,” he says. “Can I come in, Mrs Emrys? We need to talk.”

 

She gives him a long, cold stare, then opens the door wider. Lets him past.

 

“Thanks,” he mutters as he walks inside.

 

Once they’re safely in the front room, he takes a deep breath, fidgets for a moment, and… says nothing at all. She stands and watches him with her arms folded for a good few minutes before she speaks.

 

“Well?” she says.

 

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just…” He falls silent again, closes his eyes, wishes he was somewhere else. Anywhere else. “Mrs Emrys, your son is dead,” he says without opening his eyes. He doesn’t want to look.

 

“You said that before,” she says, straight away.

 

“Yes,” he says, opening his eyes and raising his head. Peering at her. “Well, this time it’s true.” He looks away hurriedly, but that doesn’t stop him hearing her gasp and her rasping, breathless sob.

 

It’s a long time before she speaks up. He thinks he sees tears in her eyes. He thinks maybe he might cry as well.

 

“Are you… are you quite certain?” she says slowly. He’s surprised. She doesn’t seem like the type to deny something like this.

 

He swallows. “I did it myself,” he admits.

 

Silence. She walks across the room to him, gasps out the first syllable of a word, cheeks reddening, then slaps him around the face. The sound of it is harsh and sudden in the quiet room.

 

“You,” she says. “You – how can you –”

 

“I had to do it,” he says. She doesn’t let him go on.

 

“Because he was dangerous?” she says. “Violent? My son? How _dare_ you!”

 

“No,” he says slowly once she’s quiet, shoulders heaving. “Because Iwas under orders from above. If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have done. Someone who… someone who wouldn’t have…” He swallows. “There was nothing I could do. It was… it was quick, and it was painless, and I… I tried. I tried to make it easier. I did.” He shifts about on the spot. “I’m so sorry. I really am. But there wasn’t anything more I could do.”

 

She doesn’t reply. He doesn’t say any more. There’s silence for a long, long time. No noise except a car driving down the road outside.

 

Then, “What happened to you?” she says. “You’re not the man I spoke to two weeks ago.”

 

He shrugs. “It’s… I don’t know. Things aren’t the same any more.” He turns and looks her square in the eye. “Could you – do you think you could ever forgive me for what I did?”

 

She lets out a deep sigh. Rests a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe,” she says. “Some day.”

 

*

 

The sound of tea cups clinking is impossibly loud. Arthur’s never heard such loud tea cups in his life. The fact that his hands are trembling slightly doesn’t help in the slightest.

 

“My hands won’t stop shaking,” he says after a few minutes. He holds one out to demonstrate. “Three days and they won’t stop shaking.”

 

“Tell me more,” she says, gazing off into the distance. “Tell me what happened. Did he say anything to you? Did you… tell me. Please.”

 

Arthur set down his tea cup, stared at his trembling hands. “We brought him into the… the room we have for, for that purpose,” he says. “I had everyone else leave once we were ready. He, uh, asked me if it would hurt, and I told him no. Then he asked me to tell him his name,” he says. He takes a deep breath, lets it out in a rush as he speaks. “Which I did. He, uh, introduced himself to me. Then he… well, he let me do it,” he says. “I stayed beside him till I was sure. Tried to comfort him.”  
 

“Did he… did he want it?” says Hunith. Arthur doesn’t answer. “Tell me,” she says. “Tell me the truth.”

 

“I… I think so,” says Arthur softly. Then softer still, “I’m sorry.”

 

“Two weeks,” she says at length. A few tears spill down her cheeks. “Two weeks and you brought him to that.”

 

Arthur opens his mouth to apologise, or to deny it, but no words come out. He’s almost glad. He hands her a folded tissue out of his pocket instead, waits till she’s wiped her face to speak. “I won’t let it happen again,” he says. “I’ve decided. I’m not going back there. I can’t… I can’t do that, not any more. Not after… I’m going to put a stop to it. I promise.”

 

His tone is hopeful, questioning. He wants her support. He _needs_ her support.

 

“If anyone can do that,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “You can. You’re Uther Pendragon’s son. They’ll listen to you.”

 

He nods slowly. Brings out another tissue.

 

*

 

The stairs in Merlin’s mother’s house creak alarmingly as he climbs them. Arthur is very much aware that she can hear his every movement – she’s still in the front room, after all. With a cup of tea and a packet of tissues. He can hear her sobbing every now and again.

 

It’s the first door on the left, next to the bathroom – and he can tell which is the bathroom because the door’s standing slightly open, chipped sink and fluffy bathmat – and he stands with his hand on the knob for a long, long time before he can bring himself to move.

 

He takes a deep breath, twists it round sharply, and blunders into the room.

Merlin’s room.

 

It looks like a child’s room. Evidently he never re-decorated. He still has Thomas the Tank Engine wallpaper, a clock shaped like a penguin with eyes that roll back and forth as if deranged, a forgotten action man perched on the end of a shelf of dusty books…

 

Arthur shuts the door carefully behind him and looks around. His eyes fall on the framed photo beside the bed, and Merlin’s eyes look back, blue and happy and piercing. It’s one of those photos you get taken at theme parks, Merlin and another boy grinning (or grimacing, maybe) on the front seat of a roller coaster, hair blown back. But they aren’t the eyes he knew. It’s the same face, just years younger, but the eyes are different, happy and sparkling and carefree. The eyes he knew looked dead.

 

He perches on the edge of the bed, reaches across to smooth out an awkward lump in the quilt near the pillow, only to find that there’s something underneath it. Something squashy.

 

He finds himself holding a faded, patched-looking teddy bears, with eyes in two different colours and tartan-clad paws. He stares at it until his eyes blur from the strain, but it’s not that, because when he blinks he feels tears streak down his face. He slides down off the bed to the blue carpet, wipes at his face with the back of his hand.

 

*

 

Merlin’s mother tip-toes in an hour later, finds him still slumped on the floor, knees pulled up against his chest, clutching her son’s bear gingerly. She offers him a tissue – he’s long since given up on wiping his face, his hands are wet as well now – and he silently accepts.

 

“You’ve been keeping it for him,” he says after a moment.

 

She nods. “Yes.” She sits down next to him. “Yes, I have. For when – for when he comes home.”

 

“I didn’t – I didn’t know,” he says. “I didn’t _know_. I’d never have, if I’d known, I’d never –” He breaks off and accepts another tissue. “There’s no way I could have known, is there?” He turns to look at her. She doesn’t answer. Her gaze leaves his.

 

*

 

He sees Merlin again that night.

 

It’s a long drive back home and it’s dark by the time he’s halfway – he hadn’texpected to stay so long – and then it starts to rain. He’s just turning back towards the windscreen after looking at a signpost when his foot hits the brake abruptly.

 

There’s someone standing right in front of the car, staring at him. His panicky gaze takes in a face that looks for all the world like Merlin’s, but then it’s gone as soon as he blinks. No-one there.

 

He gets out and checks to make sure – maybe he did hit the person after all – but there’s no-one in sight. He spends so long looking for someone who isn’t there that he’s soaked by the time he gets back into his car.

 

He writes it off as a trick of the light combined with stress, but the memory still sends a shiver up his spine.

 

*

 

But then he _keeps on seeing him_ , in full sunlight, all the time, just watching him, from the top of buildings or around corners. He’ll blink and see empty air, or someone else altogether. Shadows.

 

*

 

After a few days, he decides to go and see Merlin’s mother again. Ask her if she’s been seeing him too. Because, he reasons, if Merlin really has come back to haunt him, surely he would have visited his mother too, yeah?

 

But it’s such a strange, irrational (insane) thing to ask that his hands are shaking on the steering wheel as he pulls into her street. It takes him a few minutes just to get out of the car. He’s even more nervous than he was the first time he visited.

 

Except when he finally drags himself up, out of the car, over to the front door, it isn’t Hunith who answers the bell. It’s a stranger, a young man with brown hair and dark circles under his eyes. He looks Arthur up and down, glares at him, and says:

 

“Who are you, then?”

 

 

“I’m… Arthur,” says Arthur. “Arthur Pendragon.” The man’s eyes narrow. “I came to see Hunith, is she –”

 

But then the man’s fist collides with his face so hard that he blacks out for a second (just a second, though) and stumbles backwards. Unfortunately there’s a bit of a step up to the front door, so he topples down and falls flat on his back on the slightly damp path.

 

He drags himself up onto his elbows and gapes up at the man.

 

“Don’t play dumb!” he snaps. “Don’t pretend you don’t know why! You killed him! You bastard, you –”

 

“Will?” calls Hunith’s voice from inside. “Who is it?”

 

“You have no right to be here!” Will hisses at him.

 

“Look,” says Arthur desperately, struggling to his feet. “Look. I didn’t have a choice, alright? I didn’t have a choice!”

 

“You always have a choice!” says Will.

 

And then Hunith drags Will back inside and steps out onto the doorstep. “What’s going on?” she said.

 

“It’s nothing,” said Arthur, feeling his face. His nose is bleeding. “I was – I was just leaving, alright? It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have come here.”

 

“You’re bleeding,” she says.

 

“It’s nothing,” says Arthur, wiping the blood away on his sleeve. He tugs his car keys out of his pocket.

 

*

 

The trouble with Hunith is that she’s too damn compassionate. Arthur thinks that were he to have a son, and were someone to kill his son, he wouldn’t take them into his house to look after them because they had a nose bleed. And he _certainly_ wouldn’t give them tea and biscuits.

 

And evidently Will is of the same opinion, because he lurks in the doorway and glares at Arthur. He refuses to eat any chocolate biscuits (though he does accept a cup of tea).

 

So Arthur sits there in a frostily silent kitchen with a mug of tea and a chocolate digestive and a tissue pressed to his nose, feeling like he’s committed some horrible sin just by being there.

 

“I should go,” he says after a while.

 

“Yeah,” says Will. “Yeah, you should.”

 

“Will, leave it,” says Hunith.

 

“No,” says Arthur. “He’s right. He is. This is – this is just weird – I shouldn’t be –”

 

Will unfolds himself from the door frame and steps into the kitchen. “What are you even doing here?”

 

“I just – I came to check that she was alright,” says Arthur, getting up from his rickety chair.

 

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t need _you_ checking up on her,” says Will. “I’m here now. I’ll look after her.”

 

Arthur throws up his hands. “I’m just trying to help, alright?” he says. “I’m just trying to help.”

 

“You’re trying to _help?_ ” says Will. “You?” He points out the kitchen window at Arthur’s BMW, parked on the road outside. “You torture people to death and make enough money off it that you can buy a nice shiny car like that and you want to _help?_ ”

 

Arthur’s hands are shaking again. He clenches them into fists and sinks back into the chair. “Not any more, alright?” he says. “Not any more.”

 

“Oh, so you stopped and that makes it okay?” says Will.

 

“No,” says Arthur. “No – God, no – I’d never – but it’s over, alright? It’s over.”

 

They both fall silent.

 

“So,” says Will. “You quit your job, then?”

 

Arthur runs a hand through his hair. “Not yet,” he says. “I’m… officially I’m on a leave of absence. A breather. We – people do that a lot, it can be –”

 

“Be what?” says Will.

 

“…Stressful,” says Arthur.

 

Will doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. Just a look is enough to set shame coiling in Arthur’s guts.

 

Hunith refills his mug with fresh tea. Will slides into a chair opposite him. “I dropped out,” he says. “I couldn’t take it any more. Not after what happened. I couldn’t – I couldn’t be around those people any more.” Hunith pats his shoulder, comforting.

 

“What people?” says Arthur.

 

“The people we lived with,” Will says. “They didn’t do a thing. They just watched you take him away. I tried to stop you, but – I couldn’t.”

 

“What happened?” says Arthur.

 

“They took him anyway,” says Will. “They took him anyway, then… then they tasered me.”

 

“Oh, shit,” says Arthur. He winces. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Well, at least I tried,” says Will, sounding strangely proud.

 

A frosty silence descends on them all. Arthur crushes the remains of his biscuits into fragments. It leaves melted chocolate on his fingers.

 

“They’d listen to me,” he says eventually.

 

“Y’what?” says Will.

 

“They’d –”

 

“I heard what you said,” says Will. “It’s just – who’d listen to you?”

 

“People,” Arthur sighs. “I don’t know. I know there are people who are sympathetic, and, well –” He nods at Hunith. “You can go to the papers all you like. We’re – _they’re_ powerful enough to stop you. But they might just listen to me. I mean, I can tell them everything that was going on, and then, and then…”

 

“Then what?” Will says.

 

“If I tell them it was wrong, they might just listen.”

 

“They would,” says Hunith, nodding slowly.

 

“They’d better,” says Will. He stands up and offers Arthur an unsteady hand. “I don’tmuch like the idea of being around you, but if you’re willing to –”

 

“I am,” says Arthur. He takes Will’s hand. “Honest, I am.”

 

Will almost smiles.

 

*

 

It’s only two weeks after that that he’s sitting in his kitchen, reading article after article in the morning papers. His father will be livid. He may actually resort to violence. With a sort of grim humour, he is timing how long it takes between his father reading the papers – half past eight, every morning, all year round, for decades now, with tea and eggs and toast– and the phone ringing.

 

 _08:37_. The phone rings. He sets the paper down, walks over to read the caller ID. But he doesn’t pick up. He goes to sit back down with his coffee and keep reading the articles, feeling almost satisfied.

 

But when the phone finally, _finally_ stops ringing – it takes almost half an hour – he glances up and sees a face reflected back at him in the dark, shiny glass of the oven. A face that isn’t his own, and which is horrifyingly familiar.

 

His mug shatters on the floor.

 

*

 

Two days later, two days of ignored emails and phone calls, when his father decides to try a more direct route and draws up outside Arthur’s building, peering out suspiciously through the tinted windows, two days later, by pure fortune, Arthur is at Hunith’s house. _Merlin’s_ house.

 

His flat is cold and sterile. It never really felt like home, even before. Home was the lab. He was there almost every day – even on his days off there would almost always be an emergency, forcing him in, and he didn’t much care – he took his meals there, and he slept there. He slept there so often that he couldn’t tell you offhand what colour the sheets on his bed in his flat were. The only thing he ever did in his flat was drink himself unconscious.

 

Hunith’s house is warm and small and cluttered. The feeling that he shouldn’t be there lessens every time he visits. He and Hunith and Will are sitting around the kitchen table, making plans.

 

“Website’s almost ready to go online,” says Will. Will, who used to be an IT student. “There’s some people I’ve been emailing. Nothing concrete will stay around for more than a few weeks. It makes people suspicious.”

 

In his pocket, his mobile phone buzzes. He takes it out, glances at the screen, and flicks it off.

 

“Who’s that?” says Will.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “How long do you think it’ll take?” he says. “To get enough support?” he says.

 

Will shrugs. “Depends how long we can keep the website up for.”

 

“I’ve been spreading the word as best I can,” says Hunith.

 

“Word of mouth’s probably the best way,” Arthur agrees. “But we need a date. How soon, do you think?”

 

*

 

When he’s driving home, he turns the corner to find that his father’s car is _still_ parked outside. He doesn’t know how long he’s been there. He’d been afraid of this. One door was standing open, and a young man in a neatly pressed suit was standing outside, talking frantically into a headset as he paces up and down the pavement. He can see his lips moving, but he can’t hear anything more than a few muffled sounds. After a few seconds, his father’s voice barks out an order from inside the car. The young man pauses, nods, then resumes speaking even more frantically, complete with redundant hand gestures.

 

Arthur turns his car around and drives away. He drives around aimlessly for an hour or so, then eventually settles, just as it’s getting dark, halfway up a multi-storey car park. He tunes his radio to the most inane station he can find and closes his eyes, breathing deep. His heart his hammering.

 

And when he opens them again, Merlin is leaning on the bonnet of his car. He yelps and presses himself back against the seat.

 

He doesn’t look angry. His gaze is firm. Sad. Arthur can see him reflected in the shiny metal of the car. He’s still wearing the white pyjamas they clad all the subjects in, back at the facility.

 

He stands and stares for a few minutes, then stands up straight, turns around, and walks away. Arthur can hear his footsteps echoing in the darkness. Once he can breath again, he opens the car door and races after him, but there’s no sign of him, not anywhere. He stands in the middle of the car park, hands entangled with his hair, until a car screeches around the corner and up the ramp, forcing him to leap out of the way. The driver gives him an odd look.

 

He spends the night curled up on the backseat of the car. The next morning, he drives back down, pays the overnight fee, and buys a coffee in the first café he comes to.

Then he goes home – his father is gone at last, though there’s one of his personalised envelopes stuck to the door with a strip of sellotape – throws some clothes into a bag, and drives away.

 

It was never really home.

 

*

 

He spends most of the rest of the day sitting on a park bench, looking through all the missed calls and ignored messages on his phone. His suspects that the only reason why the texts have stopped is because his inbox is full.

 

 _Father. Lance. Owain. Lance. Father. Gavin. Owain. Lance. Lance. Father. Father. Father_. _Kay. Lance. Lance. Owain. Owain. Lance. Father. Father. Father. Father. Fathe-_

__

 

He supposes that it’s a little depressing that the only people who are worried about him are the people he worked with.

 

There’s a splash, and the ducks on the pond start quacking. He suddenly recalls his mother taking him to feed the ducks, when he was very small. He hasn’t thought about his mother in years. And now he thinks about it, other than the day she died (the day everything went wrong, the day that had led to _this_ ), he’s not sure he can remember anything else.

 

Another splash. He smiles at the competitive quacking that follows, and opens a menu on his phone. _Delete all_.

 

But then, as his phone slips back into his jacket, something quite unexpected happens.

“Doctor Pendragon?” says a hesitant, uncertain, oddly familiar voice.

 

He looks up sharply. The woman by the duck pond clutching a bag with ASDA on the side and half a loaf of cheap sliced white bread in it is the curly-haired orderly who he’d used to work with, the one who –

 

“Gwen?” he says. His phone falls into his pocket. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

 

She twists a slice of bread in her hands and bites her lip. “I don’t have a job any more, Doctor Pendragon,” she says. “I’ve found myself… unemployed. Recently. By choice, mind you, it’s not that – I mean, I didn’t – I just needed to get away,” she says as he stands up slowly. “I suppose you know what that’s like.”

 

“Just a little,” he says.

 

*

 

The bread falls into the pond with two little splashes. A large white duck viciously pecks a smaller brown one to get at it.

 

“I remember doing this with my mother,” Arthur says numbly after a while.

“I don’t,” says Gwen. She turns to look at him. He tries not to look back. “I never thought,” she says. “I never thought – of all the people I met, when I was there, I never thought it would be you who’d – who’d –”

 

“Who’d what?” he says.

 

“I don’t know,” she says. “Break down, I suppose.”

 

“Is that what they’re saying?” he says. He doesn’t really care what they think.

 

“I think so,” she says. “It was when I left, anyway. A few other people did as well. You set an example.”

 

“I haven’t officially left yet,” says Arthur.

 

“Are you going back?” she says.

 

Silence.

 

“I just never thought it would be you,” she says. “You always seemed like – well, nothing seemed to get to you. Nothing at all. I suppose I just sort of assumed that you –”

 

She breaks off.

 

“That I what?” says Arthur.

 

“That you just didn’t feel,” she says.

 

Arthur closes his eyes. He wishes he still felt numb. “I was trying not to,” he says.

“I’m glad, though,” she says. “I am. I didn’t like to think of you that way.” She rests a hand on his shoulder. He flinches away.

 

“March tenth,” he says.

 

“What?” She sounds baffled.

 

“March the tenth,” he says. “Trafalgar square. We want as many people to come as possible.” He turns to look at her at last. “We’re going to put a stop to this.”

 

“You didn’t just break down,” she says slowly. “Did you?”

 

He doesn’t answer. “Can I count on you?” he says.

 

“Of course.” She smiles, pats his shoulder again, then hands him the remains of the bread and walks away.

 

He stands and stares into the water, wondering what on earth to do with it. Then a hand clutches his shoulder. He turns around, thinking that she’s come back, but it’s not her. It’s Merlin. And this time he looks as if he’s positively seething. Furious. Arthur opens his mouth to speak but he can’t quite force the words out. By the time he manages it, Merlin has let go of him and walked away.

 

“I’m _trying!_ ” he shouts after him when he finds his tongue. “Can’t you see that I’m _trying?_ ”

 

An old man walking his dog gives him an odd look. Arthur stares at him, wide-eyed, then looks back at Merlin, but he’s gone. Maybe he was never there in the first place.

 

He dumps the rest of the bread into the pond – _splash splash splash_ – followed by his phone – _SPLASH_. He crumples the bag into the nearest bin and walks away.

 

*

 

The tenth of March is almost three months away. Plenty of time for under-the-radar planning. Once he leaves the park, Arthur cancels his credit cards, closes his bank account and opens a new one elsewhere. He buys a new phone, calls Hunith to give her the number. All in all, he keeps himself busy.

 

But then, on his second night in the hotel – which isn’t a terribly nice hotel, not what he’s used to, and he likes it that way – he closes the bathroom cabinet to see Merlin reflected in the mirrored door.

 

He takes a few frantic unsteady breaths, then closes his eyes in the hope that he’ll vanish. But he doesn’t. He’s perched on the bed, covers rumpling around him, staring at Arthur.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Arthur hisses. “Why won’t you just leave me alone? Can’t you see that I’m trying?”

 

Merlin speaks. “Trying to do what?” he says.

 

“Make things right,” says Arthur.

 

“And how are you going to do that, exactly?” Merlin stands up, one graceful movement. “They’re dead. _We’re_ dead. It’s too late to make things right, Arthur. It’s years too late.”

 

“I didn’t have a choice,” he says.

 

“You always have a choice,” says Merlin. “You could have stayed away. You could have done something else with your life. But you chose this.”

 

Arthur opens his mouth to tell Merlin about his mother, what happened to her, about his childhood, about his father, all the things he told him, about how he didn’t have a choice, he really didn’t, but none of it comes out.

 

“I’m doing this for you,” he says weakly.

 

Merlin laughs, a harsh, humourless sound. “Oh, Arthur,” he says, walking forward. “That only makes it worse, don’t you see? That only makes it worse.”

 

He’s so close that Arthur can feel his breath on the back of his neck. His blue eyes are piercing. He doesn’t dare turn around, for fear of what he might see.

 

“There is nothing you can do to make this right,” says Merlin. “Not ever.”

 

Arthur turns around. The room is empty behind him. The bed clothes are smooth, not touched since the maid changed them that morning. He finds that he is shaking.

He sleeps with the light on that night.

 

*

 

After that, Merlin is _everywhere_. Every reflective surface. Puddles in the rain, the shiny metal of Hunith’s kettle, the screen of Will’s laptop as he proudly shows him the website. And mirrors. The hotel puts mirrors _everywhere_ , landings and stairwells and in his room he has draped towels over them with a little note pinned to them telling the maids not to take them down. They must think that he is mad. Maybe he is.

 

Polished shoes, shop windows, the windscreen of his car – the windscreen so often that he has to restrain himself from smashing it at least once a week – and the dull glass of a bottle as he sits in his hotel room in his pyjamas and prays for it to stop.

 

The tenth of March is drawing closer. He does his best to focus on that. He sits in the living room of Hunith’s house with a group of fussing women who are friends of hers (all of them, he comes to realise over the four days they spend together, had known Merlin since he was a toddler. One since he was born),stitching together a banner.

 

They don’t know who he is. Hunith hasn’t told them, and somehow none of them seem to recognise him. He supposes there really haven’t been that many pictures about. Just names. They don’t know who he is and they don’t know what he did and it’s frightening and comforting all at once.

 

On the last afternoon, he keeps getting distracted by Merlin’s face, in the television set in the corner, in someone’s reading glasses, in the glass of a framed landscape photo on the wall.

 

*

 

It comes quite suddenly in the end. Three months to the day that he walked out of the facility for the last time. Three months since Merlin died. They are silent on the way there. He has butterflies in his stomach.

 

The first person he sees when he arrives is Gwen, surrounded by a group of her own friends. Then more people. And still more. They never set a time, he remembers, so there must be two hundred people here already – he sees tents, have they been here all night? He sees Merlin’s face, the old school photo he remembers from before, blown up on a placard, and other faces besides, faces he doesn’t recognise, and some he does. He says policeman clad in highlighter-yellow on the far side of the square, talking nervously into walkie-talkies.

 

He sees the grin on Will’s face, and then the realisation hits him. Somehow they have actually done it. There’s another group of people arriving as they stand there.

 

“Right, then,” says a voice behind him. He turns to see Hunith and her bespectacled friend unfurling the banner. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

 

A smile slowly spreads across his face. Today everything changes.

 

*

 

“Merlin,” Will says into a microphone from the foot of Nelson’s Column. There’s a screech of feedback. He clears his throat and starts again. “Merlin was the kindest, gentlest person I’ve even known. The day I realised what he was was the day I realised that what’s been going on is _wrong_. The day he died was the day I realised I had to change it.” More feedback. The speech is carefully practised, Arthur realises, but he still doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s sweating. There must be ten thousand people here by now. Arthur doesn’t blame him for being nervous. Will clears his throat again. “When they came to take him away, no-one did anything to stop it. But they could have stopped it, if they’d tried. There were enough of them, and they all knew him, but they did nothing. So it was just me, and I couldn’t stop it on my own. So I think that all that’s holding us back is that there’s never been enough of us before. I hope today will change that. Thank you.”

 

The microphone is passed to a girl who tells them about her best friend, only to break down crying before he speech is over. Arthur feels oddly satisfied that they got it on film. Then a man with a placard showing his dead wife, who shakes with anger as he talks about how they took his children away for testing and he still doesn’t know where they are. Another man who talks calmly about the science behind it all, about why so many of _these people_ are caught committing violent acts. About how it’s all a myth.

 

Then Will thrusts the microphone into his hand, gives him a pat on the back, and gestures for him to go next. He glares at him – he hadn’t prepared for this – and stumbles up the steps.

 

“My name,” he says. “Is Arthur Pendragon.”

 

The crowd goes wild.

 

*

 

Of course, half an hour later, the police finally decide that this won’t do, that they’re not as harmless as they seem – once the number of people there must be getting close to fifteen thousand, not quite fitting in the square any more – and they are broken up. Hunith shouts into the microphone for people not to cause trouble, for them to just pack up and leave, and amazingly most of them listen.

 

The damage has already been done, of course. It’s all over the news. There are videos on YouTube. People all over the world are watching. And then, to his surprise, Lance sends him an email – not on his old email account, the one he used for work, the one he set up, the one on the website – with page after page of classified files and security footage and transcripts of interviews.

 

_Saw you out there. –L_

 

* __

“I think,” he says haltingly in his first television interview. “I think that if people knew the full extent of what went on in the facilities, they would have been shut down a long time ago.”

 

“And what was that?” says the interviewer.

 

“Torture,” says Arthur. “We tried not to call it that, but I think everyone knew what it was, deep down. We just had to desensitize ourselves.” He steels himself. “But it didn’t matter how many lies we told. The staff turnover was incredible. Break-downs were just a fact of life.”

 

“Is that how you would describe what happened to you?” says the interviewer.

Arthur-on-the-screen hesitates. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I think I would.”

 

Arthur settles himself back against Gwen’s sofa, shot glass in hand. “You drink too much,” she says.

 

“I know,” he says. He gestures at the screen. “I was sober there, though, honest. Now shush. We’re about to be joined by Aden Hurt, MP.”

 

“And now we’re joined by Aden Hurt, MP,” says the interviewer. “Mr Hurt, can you tell us why –”

 

“I can’t believe you got the Dragon,” says Gwen.

 

“He doesn’t like the nickname, you know,” says Arthur. He swirls the drink around a few times, then downs it. “He told me.”

 

“It suits him,” says Gwen.

 

“He’s a lot friendlier in person than you would expect,” says Arthur. He gestures at the screen with his empty glass. “They’re going to show the footage now. You might want to look away.”

 

He forces himself to watch it again. He hadn’t given them anything with him in it. He didn’t want to make himself look worse than he already did. What they have instead is the most ambiguous and explicit footage he could find – footage where there are no clear faces, no identifiable doctors or subjects, but where what they are doing is clear. And Merlin is in there. It’s just a short clip – him shaking as he is thrown back into his cell by two orderlies after his first electroshock sessions – and Arthur suspects that no-one will even recognise him from the pictures, but he knows. _He knows_.

He looks down at his glass. Merlin stares up at him.

 

“People are watching this all over the country,” says Gwen. “It’ll be online by midnight. They’ll see everything.”

 

“You’re not in there,” says Arthur. “Don’t worry. I didn’t give them anything with you in it.”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” says Gwen. “It’s just that you were right. No-one has _ever_ seen this before. This has to make a difference, doesn’t it?”  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU. Sequel to [The Sky Comes Crashing Down](http://community.livejournal.com/merlinfic/415647.html). Arthur tries to make things right, he really does, but it never feels like enough. Maybe he is losing his mind. 

Eight months and one day after Merlin died, Arthur was sitting in a tiny office on the third floor of a building, listening to the clock ticking away on the wall, while the doctor – psychiatrist – Hunith had recommended stares at him over the desk.

 

He supposed that they had had to find out eventually. But not – not like _this_.

“Would you like to talk about what happened?” says Doctor Gaius.

“Not really,” says Arthur. “No.”

 

“It’s just that some amount of stress would be expected, given the circumstances,” says Gaius. “But that was something else.”

 

 _Haven’t I done enough?_ He remembers shouting at a patch of empty air. _Isn’t this enough for you?_ He remembers screaming.

 

“Miss Leodegrance says you’ve been drinking,” says Gaius.

 

Arthur stands up, paces back and forth as best he can. “That’s not new,” he says. “That goes back years.”

 

“But this is new?” says Gaius.

 

“Depends what you mean by _new_ , ” says Arthur. “Eight months now.”

 

“Since you left your job, then?” says Gaius. He stands up, walks around his desk, and takes Arthur by the shoulders. “Sit down,” he says. Arthur sits. Gaius sits too, next to him rather than opposite. “Now, can you tell me what you’ve been seeing?”

 

Arthur buries his face in his hands and takes a deep breath. “Hunith’s son,” he says, voice muffled.

 

“Merlin,” says Gaius, nodding. “I knew him.”

 

“He was… the last one,” says Arthur. “The last person – the last subject I worked on. After him I had to take a break, and that – that turned into _this_. ”

 

Twenty-thousand people yesterday. In two weeks it will go before parliament. _Why won’t you just leave me alone?_ he’d screamed.

 

“You saw him yesterday, then?” says Gaius.

 

Arthur nods. “On the stage,” he says. “He was _there_. It was so real. It’s so real, sometimes… but it isn’t, is it?” He sounds like he’s pleading. He is, isn’t he? “Please tell me it’s not real, it’s not really – it’s not _him_. Tell me he wouldn’t say those things to me.”

 

“What did he say?” says Gaius.

 

Arthur falls silent. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says.

 

“Did you care about Merlin?” Gaius says. Arthur hesitates before he nods. “I see.”

 

The doctor gets up and walks around his desk to make some notes. “It seems to me like you’re suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. Have you been suffering from nightmares at all?”

*

 

That night, Merlin is in the living room of the flat he’s been renting. But it’s different this time. This time he’s crouched on the floor, barefoot, still in the white pyjamas, eyes white and terrified. This time it’s _familiar._

__

 

“ _Say it – please, say my name – say I’m a person – I exist, I’m here, I know I am – please, just call me by my name –”_

__

 

Arthur falls to his knees on the unfamiliar ugly carpet.

 

“ _That’s not my name! Please! Please, I told you my name – I remember – please, I know you know you know oh God please…”_

__

 

He hadn’t know he could remember it in so much detail. He reaches out a hand, but Merlin doesn’t notice, because he didn’t do this, he didn’t try to help him, _why didn’t he help him –_

__

 

“Call me by my name! _Please! Oh God, please, just say it!_ ”

 

Arthur finds his tongue. “Merlin,” he says. “Merlin, you’re Merlin – I knew that, I did, I wanted to say it, please – please, I wanted to say it –” He crawls forward and reaches out, tries to touch him, but he can’t, he can’t do it. “I’m sorry – I’m so sorry, I am –”

 

Merlin is reaching out for him, he remembers Merlin reaching out for him, and he reaches back, but it’s too late, it’s too late, it’s much too late –

 

“It’ll always be too late,” says a voice behind him. Arthur slumps forwards onto the carpet, hot tears streaking down his face. “Don’t ever let yourself forget that, Arthur. For me?”

 

*

 

He tells Hunith the next time they are alone. Well. He doesn’t tell her exactly what had happened – not much more detail than he had given Gaius, really – and he suspects that she already knows, but he tells her anyway.

 

“I wanted to ask you,” he says. “The second time I came to see you. I wanted to ask if you’d been seeing him too, but then Will was here, and I just – I couldn’t. So – have you?”

 

Hunith sighs, stares down at the table for a moment, then looks up and takes him by the hand. Gives it a little squeeze. “I haven’t seen anything,” she says. “Is that… does that make it better?”

 

Arthur nodded. “Yes,” he says. “Yes. Thank you.”

 

 

He meets with the Dragon – Aden Hurt – the day before the inevitable debate. It’s the first time they’ve spoken since Arthur had – since the unpleasantness a few weeks ago.

 

“You have seen someone, though?” he says, with an encouraging smile.

 

Arthur nods. “Mrs Emrys recommended a psychiatrist,” he says. “A friend of hers.”

“Is it helping?” says the Dragon.

 

He’s been given medication to take. The only thing which works is the sleeping pills, but he hates taking them. “Of course,” he says.

 

“Now,” says the Dragon. “That’s a lie.” He rests a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Why do you think that boy had such a great effect on you?”

 

“I… don’t know,” says Arthur. “There was just… something about him. He would never back down.”

 

“I think,” says the Dragon. “That there could have been something between the two of you.”

 

Then he moves the conversation on to more official things, important things, but the whole exchange leaves Arthur shaken.

 

*

 

The next day, he and Gwen and Hunith and Will and a few other people – a blond girl who is friends with Gwen, two people from Will’s old IT course, Hunith’s friend with the glasses – watch from above, from the Strangers’ Gallery.

 

“What if they don’t do it?” whispers Gwen before it starts.

 

“Of course they will,” says Will. “They can’t not, can they? After everything?”

 

Silence. Arthur rubs at his eyes and realises that they are, in fact, looking at him for an answer. Clearly he is the most politically savvy of them. But unfortunately, he is seriously sleep deprived today – he woke up screaming at two in the morning, didn’t get to sleep again till six, had to be up at half seven – and can’t call any kind of answer to mind.

 

“Um,” he says. “I’m sure it’ll be fine?” He rubs his eyes again. Will lets out an exasperated sound. Arthur turns away. His gaze alights on a prim-looking woman in a tight skirt, blond hair pulled back severely. She’s wearing a headset, and talking in to it very, very quickly, though he can’t make out the words. He recognises her, though.

 

“Oh, no,” he says,

 

“What?” says Gwen. He points. “Oh? What about her?”

 

“Her name is Elaine,” Arthur sighs. “She works for my father. She’ll be reporting back right now.”

 

“I’m surprised he didn’t come himself,” she says.

 

“Probably too ashamed to show his face in public,” says Will, leaning back in his seat. It creaks alarmingly.

 

Then a hush falls over the gallery. The Dragon is about to speak.

 

*

 

They go out that night to celebrate their victory, to a tiny pub that Will and Merlin apparently used to go to back when they were students. It’s a rather subdued celebration, of course, and somewhat spoiled when Hunith says that none of them are to drink, because it doesn’t seem fair on Arthur.

 

“You should be trying to stop,” says Gwen, in agreement.

 

“I am _fine_ ,” says Arthur. He looks away, but Merlin’s face is lingering in the polished wood of the bar still, so he looks back.

 

Will groans. “I don’t even _like_ him,” he says. “What do I care if he’s an alcoholic?”

 

Arthur slams his fist down on the table. “I am _not_ an alcoholic!”

 

“I didn’t say that,” says Hunith quietly.

 

“No, you’re just a complete nutter who can’t –”

 

Arthur has to be dragged back down into his seat by Hunith and Gwen. Will glares. Hunith sighs. The friend with the glasses clutches her handbag.

 

“Honestly!” scolds Hunith. “Why is it that we can’t go _anywhere_ without you two arguing?”

 

“Don’t act like he’s _family_ or something,” says Will. He stands up and slopes off towards the bar. “I don’t care what you say, I’m getting a pint.”

 

Hunith stands frozen with her hands still on Arthur’s shoulder. “I don’t mind,” he says. “It doesn’t bother me. He can drink if he likes.”

 

Hunith pats him gently before she sits down. It’s strange.

 

*

 

They’ve been there for about an hour, celebrating in their own, subdued, tense, kind of fucked-up way, when Arthur gets a text message from a number which is both unknown (to his phone) and familiar (to him).

 

_Saw it on the news. Are you around? I want to congratulate you in person. –L_

__

 

“Hmm?” says Gwen, setting her lemonade down. “Who is it, Arthur?”

 

Arthur realises that she’d asked him at least once while he was reading the message.

 

“It’s Lance,” he says, voice very even. “From… before.”

 

“Who?” says Will.

 

“Someone I used to work with,” says Arthur. “He wants to join us.” He takes a deep breath and puts his phone away. “He’s the one who sent us all the footage and so on. He wants to congratulate us in person.”

 

“Let him join us, then,” says Will. Hunith nods.

 

“I remember him,” says Gwen. “He seemed… friendly.”

 

“I’ll text him back, then, shall I?” says Arthur.

 

*

 

Their greeting goes something like this:

 

“Arthur.”

 

“Lance.”

 

“Long time no see.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How’ve you been?”

 

“Not bad. You?”

 

“Alright.”

 

Then, three hours later, when Gwen and Hunith and their respective friends have gone home, leaving Arthur and Lancelot and Will alone together, when Arthur announced that _fuck it all, I really need a drink_ , and they didn’t argue, they managed to open up.

 

“I think I’m losing my mind,” Arthur says. He gazes down into the remains of his beer, sees a thousand tiny Merlins in the bubbles.

 

“You don’t look well,” says Lance. He is even less helpful when he is drunk.

 

“The thing is,” says Will. “The things is. I don’t give a shit, mate.” Arthur looks up sharply. “You’re not my friend. You never will be. 'Cause when I look at you all I can see is the man who killed my best friend.”

 

The thing is, he won’t even remember saying it tomorrow, but it still hurts.

 

“We used to come here all the time,” says Will. “Merlin liked it. It’s a listed building or something. He was studying history.”

 

“Oh, lord,” says Lance. “I don’t want to hear this.”

 

“He was going to be a teacher,” says Arthur. “He told me.”

 

“He used to drink cider all the time,” says Will. “They do this strawberry cider here and he loved that. He hardly drank, though, I used to wonder why. I kept saying he should loosen up, and then he did, and, and –”

 

“Don’t start that,” says Arthur. “It wasn’t your fault. Don’t try and claim it was your fault.”

 

Silence. The noise made by the other people in the bar seemed impossibly loud all of a sudden. Then,

 

“You didn’t know?” says Lance to Will. “Before… what happened to him? You didn’t know what he was?”

 

“Yeah,” says Will. “What of it?”

 

“But you still tried to stop it?” says Lance. Will nods slowly. “That’s… admirable. Really admirable.”

 

“He was my friend,” says Will. “Of course I tried to stop it.”

 

“It just must have been a shock,” says Lance. “That’s all.”

 

“You didn’t know him,” says Will. “Neither of you did.”

 

Arthur pushes his pint glass away from him. “I need another drink,” he says. “Badly.”

 

*

 

A week later, while things are still in an uproar, after being forced through several more hateful interviews, Arthur is walking down a corridor which is so, so familiar. And now just because his father once led him down here when he was nine years old, to show him what he did, all the good he was doing. Because it is the same as where he used to work.

 

 

**_What do you see?_ ** _says the voice._

__

 

__

 

The floor is grey linoleum that squeaks beneath his feet. The walls are white and tiled. Each door he passes has a number stencilled on to it – A5, B11, F2, G10, G11, G12 –

 

__

 

_(Because that is what it is. A voice. Not a person any more.)_

__

 

__

 

G13. He remembers being thirteen and crying like a child, and his father making him say the number over and over, to remind himself. Just a number. A thing. Not a person.

 

__

 

_She tries to shake her head despite the restraints, and maybe she can’t but she must be able to because the voice does something to make it hurt more. The girl is screaming, she can’t stop, her throat is hurting from screaming._

__

 

__

 

Not his sister. His sister died when he was thirteen and she was fifteen and she dreamed that their uncle who she hated was going to get hit by a bus and die –

 

__

 

**_Tell me what you see_ ** _, says the voice._

__

 

__

 

– And then he did. It happened. It wasn’t just a dream.

 

__

 

_“I see,” says the girl. “I see – I see you…” She opens her eyes. The face is looming over her. She hates that face._

_The voice makes it hurt again with a sharp gesture._

__

 

 

And they blamed her. Arthur’s hands are shaking as they slip the key card out of his pocket. There are others, of course, but he’s leaving those to the doctors and the psychologists who are organising themselves outside.

 

__

 

 _She sees_ things _when it hurts that badly. Fragile things, like smoke. She sees fire, things burning everywhere, children screaming. She can smell flesh crisping. It might be her own._

__

 

__

 

__

 

He has to do this himself. The card slips into the slot with a jolt. The light flashes green, and then the door swings open.

 

__

 

_“Fire,” she gasps out. “Fire – there’s a fire, they’re screaming –”_

_The voice makes it hurt less again. Maybe it stops altogether. It’s hard to tell. It hurts all the time now. She tastes blood in her mouth._

__

 

__

 

He stands outside the open door for a moment. He has to mentally prepare himself. He can’t see her, but the door is hiding half the room from view.

 

__

 

_She is vaguely aware of sounds – gloves being taken off, equipment being powered down, **That’s enough for today, take it back to its cell** – then the world is moving around her. The straps dig in to her arms._

__

 

__

 

“Morgana?” he calls as he steps over the threshold.

 

__

 

_She is drifting in and out, in and out, as they wheel her through the hallways, wheels squeaking. She can hear herself breathing._

_“Morgana?” It takes the girl too long to recognise her own name. She is curled up in the corner of her cell. She doesn’t remember leaving the gurney. But that is her name, isn’t it? How long is it since someone’s used her name?_

__

 

__

 

“Morgana?” He pushes the door open properly. And there she is, clad in the horrible white pyjamas. All he can see is her hair, cascading down across her whole body, and her hands, clasped pale around her knees, nails bitten to the quick.

 

 

_She knows the voice. It’s a different voice. She can’t quite place it, but she knows it._

_Perhaps this is another dream. It’s hard to tell._

__

 

__

 

And that’s not right. He remembers seeing nail files and emery boards and cuticle sticks and row after row of little bottles, a rainbow of nail varnish stretched out across the shelf. But then he remembers seeing it all burn in the garden – everything, from bed sheets to the teddy bear she’d had since she was a baby that she’d let him cuddle when he cried, to the posters on her walls, to the music box with the delicate little fairy that his mother had given her when she’d first come to live with them that she’d loved so much, all of it burning, acrid smoke rising to the heavens like some kind of obscene Pagan sacrifice, and all of a sudden he feels sick.

 

 

_Someone is in the cell with her. She takes a peek, and sees that it is not an orderly or a doctor or any of the people she’s grown used to. It’s a man in slightly worn-looking clothes with blond hair and bright blue eyes that look so familiar._

_She hides behind her hair again._

__

 

__

 

“Morgana?” he drops to his knees in front of her and reaches out a hand to brush her hair away. She flinches. “It’s me. Do you remember me, Morgana? Do you?”

 

 

_It might be a dream. She can feel his hand on her shoulder, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a dream. She feels all sorts of things in dreams._

__

 

__

 

“It’s Arthur,” he says. “It’s me. I’ve come to take you away from here, Morgana.”

 

 

_Everything is spinning. The world is topsy-turvy. She remembers Arthur, but he is just a child. He was younger than the girl. The girl used to tease him. This is a grown man. This is not her little brother who cried when the van had come for her. Not the little brother who had sneaked into her room where she was locked away the night before and promised to come for her one day._

__

 

__

 

There’s a mumble from behind her hair.

 

“Morgana?” he says. He goes to brush it away again, and this time she lets him, revealing one frightened blue eye.

 

“You’re not my brother,” she says.

 

 

_His face crumples. He looks heartbroken. She is not following the logic of his dream right. Maybe soon the voice will make the pain stop again and the dream will end._

__

 

__

 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I did everything wrong. But it’s fixed now. You can leave here now. There’s people to look after you. Can you forgive me?”

 

That one eye stares at him in confusion. “You’re not my little brother,” she says.

 

And this time he understands. “Morgana,” he says. “Morgana, it’s been eleven years, Morgana.”

 

This does not clear matters up.

 

 

_Her hair falls back over her face, and that should make him go away, this imposter, but he doesn’t. She feels strong hands grip her shoulders._

_“Morgana, listen to me,” he says. “I’m sorry. But I promised you, didn’t I? It just took a little longer than I expected. I got sidetracked on the way. But I think I’m on the right path now.”_

__

 

__

 

There are voices in the corridor outside. “Look, see?” Arthur says. “There are people coming to help you.” She shakes her head.

 

“This isn’t real,” she says. “None of this is real.”

 

“Yes,” he says. “It is.”

 

 

_And then the false brother’s arms are around her, lifting her up, leading her over to a strange man and a strange woman who are all comforting smiles and gentle words. She is bewildered. It’s not until she is led outside and sees others all along the corridor being led out the same way that she believes it._

_They all look just as bewildered as she does._ __

*

 

After that, things finally start looking up. Arthur and Hunith meet with the Dragon to discuss new legislation to be brought in. The news shows touching footage of the man from the first protest being reunited with his children at last. Gaius puts him on some new medication that actually seems to work for a while, keeps Merlin away from him.

But then nine months later he wakes up in a cold sweat, flicks on the light to find Merlin standing just inside the window.

 

“No,” he says. “No, not again.” He leaps out of bed, shuddering at the sudden cold air. He is wide awake.

 

“What?” says Merlin. “Thought it was all over now?”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” says Arthur. “It’s just – no.” He turns away. “No. I won’t talk to you. You’re not real. This is just – stress. Post-traumatic – whatever. You’re not real.”

 

“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” says Merlin, walking around him. “I bet you just tell yourself that, don’t you? You only see me because you feel so fucking _bad_ about what you did to me. That’s what it is, isn’t it? Eh, Arthur?”

 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m still trying.”

“Brought them back from the dead yet?” says Merlin.

 

Arthur covers his face with his arms. He feels like a child. “You were the only one,” he says. “That I killed.”

 

“Oh, of course,” says Merlin. “Because torturing them for a while and then signing some paperwork that says someone else can do it doesn’t count, does it? How many lives did you destroy?”

 

Arthur tries to count them up, but he can’t, it’s too hard. Faces flash before his eyes, all of them contorted in pain.

 

“You don’t even remember,” says Merlin. He wrenches Arthur’s arms away from his face. It really hurts. This is really real. “Do you?”

 

“I’m making it right,” says Arthur.

 

“There’s only one way to do that,” says Merlin. “And we both know it.”

 

“I don’t understand,” says Arthur.

 

“Justice, Arthur,” says Merlin, backing away from him. “ _Justice_. ”

 

*

 

The next morning, he toys with his pills, then slings the whole lot in the bin. They won’t help if it’s real.

 

When he looks down, Merlin stares back at him out of his morning coffee. _Justice._

__

 

*

 

“Arthur,” Doctor Gaius says over the phone a little over a month later. “This is starting to worry me. You’ve missed five sessions now.”

 

“I feel fine,” Arthur tells him in the most jovial tone he can manage. “I think I’m better on my own, now.”

 

“Please tell me you’re at least taking your medication?” says Gaius.

 

“Of course,” says Arthur. “Excuse me, would you?” He hangs up the phone.

 

*

 

It’s another month and a half while things are being organised still – people are still being properly identified, family tracked down, working out who’s dead and who is amongst the huddled masses filling up the mental hospitals, and then there’s making sure that all those who are still hiding can come out, can be who they really are.

 

But then finally, _finally_ , on the second anniversary of Merlin’s death, Arthur has but a few things left to do.

 

*

 

The hospital is a nice, friendly sort of place, with flowers and soft, gentle colours and friendly staff. It’s as sharp a contrast to where she used to be as you could get. He knocks on her door, and then walks straight in when there’s no answer.

 

She’s sitting curled up on the end of her bed, staring out of the window. “I dreamed you’d come today,” she says.

 

He wondered if she knew, but he didn’t dare ask. “Just came to see how you are,” he says with a smile. For once it is sincere.

 

“You look well,” she says. “I dreamed that, too.” She turns to look at him. “Are you?”

“I think I am,” he says. “I think I really am. Everything’s fixed now.”

 

“You’re the hero,” she says. He sits down next to her.

 

“I suppose,” he says. He strokes her hair idly. “They’re looking after you alright?”

 

She nods. He notices that someone has fixed her nails. They’re not long anymore, but they’ve been trimmed and filed properly now.

 

“I’m glad,” he says. He smiles again. The heavy feeling that has been in his chest for so long is finally gone.

 

“I’m glad too,” she says.

 

Then there come another knock on the door. “Lunch time, Morgana!” says a cheerful voice. “Um. I saw Arthur go in. Are you still there? Can you get the door? My hands are full.”

 

Arthur grins, stands up, and opens the door to let Gwen in.

 

“I had the kitchen make anchovies on rye specially for you, Morgana,” she says brightly. “They weren’t going to do it today.”

 

Morgana smiles as Gwen sets the tray down near her. “Thank you,” she says.

“I should go,” says Arthur. “Gwen?”

 

“Hmm?” she turns to look at him, curls bouncing around. She looks happier than he’s ever seen her.

 

“Thank you,” he says. “For looking after her.”

 

“Oh,” she says. “You’re quite welcome. I mean, I –”

 

He holds up a hand. She falls silent. “Just don’t ever stop, alright?” he says.

 

She smiles and nods. He reaches out, gives her a quick hug, then nods his farewells to both of them.

 

*

 

After that, he drives round to Hunith’s house – he still has the BMW, never had the heart to get rid of it – and spends an hour or so sitting in the kitchen having tea and biscuits with Hunith and Will.

 

He sees his own face amongst the photos on the wall, a picture of him at the first protest, all blurry and out of focus. He feels warm looking at it.

 

“I’m glad everything’s worked out,” he tells them.

 

Two weeks ago, he helped Hunith box up Merlin’s things and put them in the attic. Will sleeps there now. He’d been on the sofa for far too long.

 

“What do you mean?” says Hunith, frowning.

 

He stirs his tea. “Everyone seems to be happy,” he says.

 

“Is that why you’re so cheerful today?” says Will.

 

“Something like that,” says Arthur. “Yes.”

 

Hunith smiles and offers him the plate of biscuits.

 

*

 

That evening, he watches the sun set out of the window of his flat. He’s just spent an hour or so tidying everything up. It isn’t hard. He doesn’t have much stuff to tidy. But he feels that it was worth it.

 

Merlin’s face gazes out at him from the darkening window. He sighs, rubs a hand over his face, and fetches himself a drink.

 

By nine o’clock, he’s sitting down at the foot of his bed, curtains wide open, staring up at the stars. He still has the empty shot glass in his hand. With his other hand, he reaches under the bed and pulls out the box that he’s been hiding there for a month.

Merlin kneels down beside him.

 

“I tried so hard,” says Arthur. “I did. It’s not enough, is it?”

 

“It’ll never be enough,” says Merlin. He watches, eyes almost hungry, as Arthur opens the box. Then his fingers curl around Arthur’s, guiding his hand.

 

 _Click._ And it’s ready. His hands are shaking, but Merlin’s are steady as they guide him.

 

“I did it all for you,” Arthur says. “I’m so sorry. I tried so hard to make it all right.”

Merlin doesn’t answer. He’s already said everything he’s going to, Arthur realises. He closes his eyes. Breathes in. Breathes out.

 

The cool metal of the gun is like a brand against his temple.

 

*

 

_It is dark and silent and unfamiliar. For what seems like an eternity, nothing happens at all._

__

 

_Then a voice speaks. “It’s you.”_

__

 

_He knows that voice. He’s heard it over and over in the past two years. But it sounds different this time. Softer._

__

 

_“Yes,” he says. “I suppose it is.”_

__

 

_Silence falls around them like a shroud._

__

 

_“I tried, you know,” he says. “I tried so hard to make it right. And then I kept thinking I had, but it never felt right. Everyone was happy but me.”_

__

 

_Silence again. He feels cool fingers close around his wrist. He has wrists, still? He pictures himself, slumped on the floor of his bedroom, blood pooling on the carpet, one wrist flung outwards, and inwardly shudders._

__

 

_“Did you…” The voice trembles, hesitant in the darkness. “Did you do this to yourself?”_

__

 

_“Yes,” he says. “I was trying to make it better.”_

__

 

_Another hand takes hold of his other wrist._

__

 

_“You hate me,” he says. “Don’t you?”_

__

 

_“I’m not sure how I feel at the moment,” says the voice._

__

 

_“I tried so hard,” he says again. Then, “You were the only one, you know. The only one I – mostly other people did it for me. That’s worse, isn’t it?”_

__

 

_“Probably,” says the voice._

__

 

_And this, this is real. What he’s been seeing hasn’t been real. He feels relief flood through him. The dark begins to recede, more grey than black now. He can make out a dim shape in front of him._

__

 

_“I understand,” he says. Arthur says. “I do. What I did was unforgivable. What I did to you. But – do you think maybe –”_

__

 

_“Maybe some day,” says Merlin. The darkness recedes until Arthur can see his face. He looks more curious than angry. Tentative. Open. It’s not the face he’s seen so many times. “Not now.”_

__

 

_“But we have a lot of time,” says Arthur. “Don’t we?”_

__

 

_“Yes,” says Merlin. “Yes, I think we do.”_


End file.
